The U.S. Bureau of Land Management recently revealed a new policy on geologic carbon storage policy for public lands.
According to a June 10 BLM news release, "geologic carbon sequestration is the process of safely injecting carbon dioxide — the most common greenhouse gas — deep underground, permanently preventing it from entering the atmosphere and contributing to the climate crisis."
“This policy is an important tool to help the BLM combat the climate crisis and supports the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050," Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in the release.
Carbon dioxide has been injected underground in the United States since the 1940s, but usually as a temporary measure to create additional petrol. This is the first time BLM is issuing a policy for the permanent underground storage of carbon dioxide, according to the BLM news release.
As this procedure is becoming permanent, a policy was required for the right-of-way authorizations needs for "site characterization, capture, transportation, injection and permanent geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide in connection with carbon sequestration projects," according to an instruction memorandum issued June 8.
The Department of Energy also took action, confirming $39 million for research and development to turn buildings into net carbon storage structures, according to a June 13 DOE news release. These funds will go toward the Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program.
"Greenhouse gas emissions associated with material manufacturing and construction, renovation and disposal of buildings at the end of their service life are concentrated at the start of a building’s lifetime, making them essential to address given the urgency of meeting national energy and environmental challenges," the release reported..
There are 18 teams — representing universities, private companies and national laboratories — selected for the HESTIA program which will create and demonstrate building materials and net carbon negative whole-building designs.
According to the DOE release, National Renewable Energy Lab, of Fairbanks, Alaska, was awarded $2,476,145 to develop cost-effective, bio-based insulation. The team will combine cellulose with mycelium, the root network of fungi, to create a new class of high-performing, carbon-capturing and storing foams and composites. Purdue University, of West Lafayette, Ind., was awarded $598,245 to create a transformational “living” wood with the strength of steel, a self-healing capability and combined carbon-sequestering benefits from wood and microbes. Manufacturing living wood is inherently scalable and will increase healthy forest management and a national bio-economy.
Additionally, the release reported SkyNano LLC, of Knoxville, Tenn., will build a composite panel that has bio-derived natural fibers that possess excellent mechanical and functional properties while maintaining a carbon-negative footprint with its $2,000,000 award. The technology will permit interior building surfaces to be carbon negative. University of Pennsylvania, of Philadelphia, Pa., received $2,407,390 to make a carbon-negative medium-size building structure by building a high-performance floor system with maximized surface area for carbon absorption, using a novel carbon absorbing concrete mixture as construction material, 3-D printing the parts with a novel concrete mixture and additional bio-based carbon-storing materials.
See the rest of the projects on the Advanced Research Projects Agency website.
